A castle doctrine, also known as a castle law or a defense of habitation law, is a legal doctrine that designates a person’s abode or any legally occupied place (for example, a vehicle or home) as a place in which that person has protections and immunities permitting one, in certain circumstances, to use force (up to and including deadly force) to defend oneself against an intruder, free from legal prosecution for the consequences of the force used.^[1] The term is most commonly used in the United States, though many other countries (see below) invoke comparable principles in their laws.

Depending on the location, a person may have a duty to retreat to avoid violence if one can reasonably do so. Castle doctrines lessen the duty to retreat when an individual is assaulted within one’s own home. Deadly force may either be justified, the burdens of production and proof for charges impeded, or an affirmative defense against criminal homicide applicable, in cases “when the actor reasonably fears imminent peril of death or serious bodily harm to him or herself or another”.^[1] The castle doctrine is not a defined law that can be invoked, but a set of principles which may be incorporated in some form in many jurisdictions. Castle doctrines may not provide civil immunity, such as from wrongful death suits, which have a much lower burden of proof.

Justifiable homicide^[2] in self-defense which happens to occur inside one’s home is distinct, as a matter of law, from castle doctrine because the mere occurrence of trespassing—and occasionally a subjective requirement of fear—is sufficient to invoke the castle doctrine, the burden of proof of fact is much less challenging than that of justifying a homicide in self-defense. With justifiable homicide in self-defense, one generally must objectively prove to a trier of fact, against all reasonable doubt, the intent in the intruder’s mind to commit violence or a felony. It would be a misconception of law to infer that because a state has a justifiable homicide in self-defense provision pertaining to one’s domicile, it has a castle doctrine protecting the estate and exonerating any duty whatsoever to retreat therefrom. The doctrine can be misused as a pretext for extrajudicial punishment in private spaces. The use of this legal principle in the United States has been controversial in relation to a number of cases in which it has been invoked, including the deaths of Japanese exchange student Yoshihiro Hattori and Scottish businessman Andrew de Vries.

History

The legal concept of the inviolability of the home has been known in Western civilization since the age of the Roman Republic.^[3] In English common law the term is derived from the dictum that “an Englishman’s home is his castle” (see Semayne’s case). This concept was established as English law by the 17th century jurist Sir Edward Coke, in his The Institutes of the Laws of England, 1628:^[4]

For a man’s house is his castle, et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium [and each man’s home is his safest refuge].^[4]

English common law came with colonists to the New World, where it has become known as the castle doctrine.^[4] The term has been used in England to imply a person’s absolute right to exclude anyone from their home, although this has always had restrictions, such as bailiffs having increasing powers of entry since the late-20th century.^[5]

According to 18th-century Presbyterian minister and biblical commentator Matthew Henry, the prohibition of murder found in the Old Testament contains an exception for legitimate self-defense. A home defender who struck and killed a thief caught in the act of breaking in at night was not guilty of bloodshed. “If a thief is caught breaking in and is struck so that he dies, the thief owes no blood-debt to the home-defender; but if the thief lives, he owes a blood-debt to the home-defender and must make restitution.”^[6][7]

In the early United States

“Trespassers will be shot” sign

By the 18th century, many US state legal systems began by importing English common law such as Acts of Parliament of 2 Ed. III (Statute of Northampton), and 5 Rich. II (Forcible Entry Act 1381) in law since 1381—which imposed criminal sanctions intending to discourage the resort to self-help.^[8][9] This required a threatened party to retreat, whenever property was “involved” and resolve the issue by civil means.

Then as now, there were English politicians who were for or against the use of self-help over state-help. William Blackstone, in Book 4, Chapter 16^[10] of his Commentaries on the Laws of England,^[11] proclaims that the laws “leave him (the inhabitant) the natural right of killing the aggressor (the burglar)” and goes on to generalize in the following words:

And the law of England has so particular and tender a regard to the immunity of a man’s house, that it stiles it his castle, and will never suffer it to be violated with immunity: agreeing herein with the sentiments of ancient Rome, as expressed in the works of Tully;^[12] quid enim sanctius, quid omni religione munitius, quam domus uniusquisque civium?^[13] For this reason no doors can in general be broken open to execute any civil process; though, in criminal causes, the public safety supersedes the private. Hence also in part arises the animadversion of the law upon eaves-droppers, nuisancers, and incendiaries: and to this principle it must be assigned, that a man may assemble people together lawfully without danger of raising a riot, rout, or unlawful assembly, in order to protect and defend his house; which he is not permitted to do in any other case.

— William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England

Not only was the doctrine considered to justify defense against neighbors and criminals, but any of the Crown’s agents who attempted to enter without a proper warrant as well. Prohibitions of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution share a common background with current castle doctrine laws.^{[citation needed]}

In 1841, The Preemption Act was passed to “appropriate the proceeds of the sales of public lands… and to grant ‘pre-emption rights’ to individuals” who were already living on federal lands (commonly referred to as “squatters“). During this same period, claim clubs sprung up all over the US advocating vigilance and the castle doctrine. This was in concurrence with the culture of manifest destiny which led to westward expansion and the American Indian Wars, the last of which ended by the 1920s.

On the American frontier

On the American frontier, the doctrine of no duty to retreat extended outside a residence. It asserted that a man in an altercation that he did not provoke was not obliged to flee from his attacker, but was free to stand his ground and defend himself. A state Supreme Court justice wrote in 1877,^[14]

Indeed, the tendency of the American mind seems to be very strongly against the enforcement of any rule which requires a person to flee when assailed.

Current position

“I don’t call 911 (with a pistol image)” sign in Texas

Today, the penal and civil forcible-entry laws of most American states forbid the use of force in the recovery of possession of land.^[15] At most the Castle Doctrine is an affirmative defense for individuals inevitably charged with criminal homicide,^[16] not a permission or pretext to commit homicide—which is generally unlawful. A minority of states permit individuals who have the right of immediate possession of land to use reasonable force to regain possession of that land,^[17] with Texas being the only state to allow the use of deadly force to regain possession of land or property.^[18]

The term “make my day law” came to be used in the United States in 1985 when Colorado passed a law that shielded people from any criminal or civil liability for using force against a home invader, including deadly force.^[19] (The law’s nickname is a reference to the line “Go ahead, make my day” (meaning ‘do something so I have an excuse to kill you’) uttered by actor Clint Eastwood‘s character “Dirty Harry” Callahan in the 1983 police film Sudden Impact.)
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